If time heals all wounds, it’s certainly helped the reputation of the 1978-1981 Toyota Celica in my mind. These cars were everywhere during my childhood, most frequently as three-door liftbacks. By that time most, usually painted some variation of brown or bronze, had succumbed to the tin worm and were quite the eyesore. By the mid ’90s, they were a very uncommon sight and naturally, I never got the best impression of them, but when they were released, as one of the first Toyotas styled in North America, they were quite fresh. Of course, I wasn’t alive while these were being cranked out so I had to take pictures when I saw this one in Rockland, Maine where it makes an even more improbable sight than in Indiana or Ohio. Non-original paint and rims notwithstanding, it allowed me to finally see it with a fresh perspective: suddenly, it’s 1980!

The treatment of certain details give this car away as a product of the 1970s, with brushed steel and protruding door handles not meeting the minimalism achieved by the crispest shapes of the following decade, but there’s a simplicity of form which its curvy predecessor lacked, not to mention the contemporary S11 Nissan 200SX/Silvia.

It could be that since I always see liftbacks, which have a uniquely wide B-pillar, I’ve failed recognize these as attractive cars. When the second generation Celica was new, though, those were the hot ticket, making this two-door rather obscure.

Well silly me for overlooking them, then, because these are actually quite good looking in their old age, and a stunning debut for the CALTY design center which conceived them. If only Toyota held onto that sort of design leadership. Actually, any sort of leadership would’ve been worth holding onto when it came to the Celica. If Honda’s Prelude was mild mannered, outside of versions with the “big block” VTECs, the Celica was resolutely taciturn, with the exception of the rare and expensive GT4/All-Trac which came out much later. The 2 litre 22R which powered these cars was above average for the times, of course, but future generations failed to meaningfully build on that competitive edge. This is one of the more exciting Celicas relative to the times.

Mechanically, these were conventional cars but up-to-date by American standards, with a five-link rear axle and struts up front to complement an overhead cam engine and five-speed transmissions. They were compelling buys until the likes of the Fox Mustang and Camaro got their act together with less strangled powertrains, and probably convinced more than a couple Monte Carlo intenders to go Toyota as well. But more than that, these cars also attracted many proto yuppies who went on to buy more expensive European metal by the time these were about five years old. Owner loyalty is much lesser in the image-conscious segments these cars played in, and when it came to building the Toyota brand in this country, the Celica played second fiddle to cars like the Corolla, Corona and pick ups.

That isn’t to say that they were unprofitable (quite the opposite) or that people weren’t more than happy to own Celicas. I’d imagine many fond memories are associated with them and that they were probably the first car many people owned with such classy touches as real bucket seats and full instrumentation. That dashboard had more than a few new car buyers feeling smart and from the looks of it, this particular car has seen service for much of its life; check out the ’90s vintage CD player (those weren’t necessarily cheap back then). This is a much more attractive dash than that which went into the 1982 and 1986 cars, the latter of which had faux-stitching (listen to Nancy, Toyota, and just say no!).

This car got upgrades before the ’90s, too, if those rear window louvers and pop-up sunroof are any indication. Actually, all the bolt-ons this car has gotten speak to decades of embodying its owners’ ambitions. It’s rare to see such love continuously bestowed upon a car and really, it’s in keeping with the Celica’s role as a fashion statement. But even if it was less than a serious sporting machine, honest design and mechanicals kept it from being a fashion victim. Will we see a well-built, stylish, keenly priced Toyota like this anytime soon? I’ll keep my fingers crossed; the FT-86 is a good start, even if its looks, its Subaru engine and the cynical, fabricated link to the posthumous fame of its namesake fail to impress. I’d argue product planners might find more inspiration in this model, which was what buyers wanted while it was actually in production. C’mon, Toyota, I know you have it in you.

41 Comments

When I was a boy, my parents had a 1979 Toyota Celica GT. It was similar to this one, except it was white. It wasn’t as attractive as this one, but like most Toyotas of the time, it was reliable. I miss these early Toyotas. I’d buy one myself if the condition was right, and the price within my range. 🙂

Perry, my early experiences with these are similar to yours. They were all over the place in the 80’s when I was a kid, but as the decade wore on and into the 90’s they started looking very ratty and then disappearing. It’s been years since I’ve seen one, and in that time probably only one or two of the Supras based on this Celica. I’d pretty much forgotten about the coupes in favor of the more common liftback.

Looking at it today, it does seem like a good design, if unquestionably 70’s (the nose treatment dates it the most, I think). Better than I gave it credit for, anyway. And that is actually quite a nice interior. I can see how this could have been a sort of “junior aspirational” car in its time. And it’s heartening to see that this one has been well taken care of for a long time, in that it’s still around and in the accessories that tell a story of the years. (I think I had a Alpine CD player very similar to that one in my Malibu.)

For me, though, I prefer the folded-paper styling of its successor model. The early to mid 80’s Celicas still turn my head whenver I see them, and those 2nd-gen Supras are among my favorite cars of the decade…

My sister traded a LEMON yellow Camaro for a 1980 Celica ST and was so impressed by the quality of Japanese cars that she has owned/driven Japanese-branded cars for 35 years.
I drove her 80 Celica and felt that mechanically it was quite similar to a 4, or even 6 cylinder powered 80s Mustang…..but much better built. Unfortunately, these cars seem kind of anodyne, even in the 80s they didn’t excite an enthusiastic driver. And yet, I would really like to own one if I could find a nice one that wasn’t way overpriced.

As a senior in high school, I sold my self-redone, 1968 VW Bug, and used the proceeds to put a down-payment on a 1978 GT Liftback. It had 36,000 miles, was three years old when I got it, and it was beautiful. They were so far advanced from anything else in my small Ohio hometown. I drove it all through college, and finally got rid of it at 120,000 miles, which at the time, seemed crazy-excessive. What a great car. Drove well, great mileage, and was bulletproof. A little rust by the time I got rid of it (it was eight years old) along the front of the rockers, but nothing extreme. Pound for pound, one of the best cars I ever owned. (and that includes my GTI’s). Thanks for posting the ad copy, which is a trip right down memory lane. The car in the ad-rims and all-was exactly like mine.

….and probably convinced more than a couple Monte Carlo intenders to go Toyota as well.

I can go one better than that. Our neighbor who lived behind us when I was growing up traded his special ordered, every option except leather ’78 Coupe deVille d’Elegance for an ’81 Supra. Of course it was black with gold badging like seemingly all of the early Supras.

Meanwhile, back on our street a couple of years earlier, the neighbors two doors down traded their first-gen Celica for a ’79 Delta 88 coupe.

My memories of these cars echoes what has already been described. They were everywhere when I was a kid, and several of them populated my high school parking lot in the mid ’80s. But like so many other Japanese cars of the period, they somehow managed to rust even in Houston.

As a young parts manager at a Canadian Toyota dealership, I had the opportunity to drive many Celicas as demos. They 78 + version was a real upgrade from the previous, – quiet and smooth riding, but small enough to be quite nimble. The 20 and 22 R engines were the same as in their pickups and Corona’s – dead reliable [except for exhaust manifold leaks] and not too exciting.

The hatchback certainly was way more popular than the sedan in my area but then again it was in the middle of the great Hatchback epoch when every mfg was making hatchback versions of many of their models because people were buying them.

Overall I’ve never been impressed with this design, particularly the front end treatment. It looks like so many euro cars that were designed for composite headlights and then had a hasty adaptation to use sealed beams. I also hate the bumpers on this era Toyota, everyone complains about the park benches that US cars ended up with to meet bumper standards but these are so much worse. They don’t age that well, they fade or warp and are often marred by minor impacts, which of course was the whole idea behind the 5mph bumper in the first place.

Overall this car is in amazing condition, particularly the interior since they did not hold up well at all. It appears that the seats may be from something else though.

Very nice find Perry! I’m likely in the minority here, but I never really liked the liftbacks of these. I much prefer the coupe body style, and thinking more about that, I think that’s true of nearly all the generations for me. Time has softened me to the early circular headlamp versions as well. That seems to be an unusual color for the time, but I don’t think the feature car has been repainted. It looks to be Green Metallic (6C3), confirming this to be a ’79. Keen eyes will notice the front seats were taken from an ’86-89 GT- S model. As Dave mentioned above, this would have been powered by the 2.2 20R motor, shared with the Corona and Hilux. The only engine change for the second generation came in ’81, when the 2.4 22R was fitted. I’d love to know how many miles this car has acquired after all these years. All things considered, that Celica seems to be an amazing survivor.

These are perfectly competent cars (and quite durable if they haven’t rusted out), but they’re only really sporty by implication. They ride well, but they feel very sedanish. Honestly, I think that was part of the appeal in the U.S., where a lot of people just wanted something with a bit of flair that would provide painless go-to-work transportation. If you treated it like a two-door sedan, it worked pretty well.

I end up wondering if some of the hotter JDM versions made any difference. In Japan, these were available with five different engines, none of them the 20R or 22R — seven if you count the XX (Supra). Most of them probably weren’t really any faster than the U.S. cars (I imagine the 1.6-liter was pretty gutless), but there were also the DOHC 2T-GEU and 18R-GEU, which had L-Jetronic and 115 and 135 PS (gross) respectively. Although I don’t know how much the 2000GT/2000GTV suspension actually differed from the U.S. GT (it did have a rear anti-roll bar and four-wheel discs).

In any case, these didn’t sell terribly well in Japan, which I gather was chiefly because people thought the styling was dull.

They drove pretty sporty relative to all the 2.3 liter Foxbody Mustangs that were everywhere at the time. The Iron Duke powered F-bodies on the horizon at the time made them feel like Alfa-Romeo GTAs.

Japanese styling practices used to be explained as surface-excitement. The theory was that Japanese cities were so crowded that people rarely saw cars in their entirety, so every panel needed to be covered in bumps, trim, and scoops. This car certainly didn’t have that.

I’m no expert on Japanese styling trends, but my theory is that it was more a reaction to the tax-based restrictions on size. The size difference between a small car and the biggest car you could get without moving into serious high-roller running costs was not that much, so Japanese automakers got into the same kind of “more money = more trim” thing that characterized American cars from the ’30s to about the late ’50s. Simple implied cheap and thus less desirable.

You know, I honestly don’t know — I don’t have Silvia sales figures for that period. My guess is no, but I couldn’t say for sure. To the extent buyers went elsewhere, I suspect the chief rivals were the Corolla Levin and maybe the Savanna RX-7. If you were looking at the smaller engines, the Levin made more sense, given that it was lighter.

Regarding these not selling all that well in Japan, I don’t think it’s as simple as the cars looking “dull”, but rather increased competition in the specialty sector. 1978 sales increased 25% over the previous year to 60,956. This was followed by 48,047 for 1979. In 1980, sales plummeted to 22,083, and barely rose to 23,916 for 1981. By itself that seems bad, but only three model years went above 1981’s level ever again for the remainder of the Celica’s production run; 1982 (24,535), 1990 (29,245), and 1994 (30,520). Quite the contrast to an all-time high of 86,211 sold in 1973.

There was more competition, especially once the Savanna RX-7 arrived, although there hadn’t really been much when the A40 first arrived. On the other hand, Toyota had an enormous dealer and marketing advantage and in other segments didn’t typically have a problem fending off new rivals. The A40 wasn’t able to do that, although it had some big advantages over the RX-7 and Prelude in terms of dealer base and diversity of model and engine lineup. The A40’s JDM sales weren’t disastrous or anything, but it wasn’t as successful at home as the previous generation had been.

I tend to agree with your observation – in my childhood during the early ’80s, when these were still relatively new, most of the ones I saw tended to be brown or bronze colored liftbacks, as Toyota called them. This generation seems a bit unloved, though, and it’s a rare sight at car shows highlighting older Japanese cars.

My dad had one of these – a ’79 notchback in beige with the same interior as pictured. I was not a fan at the time but have since come around (a bit). I do like the Supra version as well as the predecessor of this one in liftback form. Actually, in EVERY generation of Celica I much prefer the liftback.

Can’t agree with you re: the dash – you sat very low and looked at a wall of dashboard ahead of you with a very high cowl height. Not a great feeling, the next two generations were much better in this respect (IMO, of course).

It drove OK, if sort of truckish, which is kind of a RWD Celica trademark I guess. I recall the shiftlever having an absurdly long rod, just like the one pictured, you almost had to reach up to operate it. I much preferred my ’79 Mazda 626 coupe at the time in all respects. However, the Celica was more reliable and needed less maintenance.

Ours met its end when my brother drove it to high school one day while my parents were on vacation and it got stolen out of the lot. It was found two weeks later, stripped, burned, and at the bottom of a cliff somewhere near Palm Springs.

Interestingly I have been looking for a 2nd generation Celica lately. Not easy to find one even out here in California. Did happen to see two fastbacks on a drive up to Seattle, locate in separate locations above the California-Oregon border, along the freeway fence line. Both were that brown color so common back then. I want the 22R engine with rear wheel drive. Did find a 82 626 that also fits the bill and is even rarer than the Celica. Price is higher than it should be given the absence of a market for such a car.

The RWD 626 is a much more fun to drive than a Celica of this era even if the Celica is supposed to be a sporty car and the 626 just a sedan. The 20R is the better engine since it still had the double row, true roller timing chain with steel backed guides. The 22R went to a single row non roller chain with plastic backed guides that snap when the chain stretches and flops around on start up. Eventually it will wear a hole in the timing cover and it does it where the coolant passage to the water pump is so it fills the crankcase with coolant. There is a reason you can buy new timing covers for the 22R and that for many years it was the second best selling rebuilt engine right after the Chevy 350.

Good to know that there is an inherent problem with the 22R which means my search will end now. This is assuming there in no way to upgrade the chain and get away from this problem. Will need to research it as I have started but seems like many start from having the oil pump and crank front seal replaced then using the incorrect top center oil pump bolt for the housing punching out the backside. Once done it can rest on the plunger pad of the chain tensioner and from there it goes downhill.

It depends on the 22R shares the same deck height as the 20R so all of those timing components can be swapped over, the trick is you need the 20R oil pump drive because it is shorter to compensate for the wider timing gears. The 22-re has a shorter deck height so the 20R timing components will not transfer over however the aftermarket does offer timing kits with steel guides to eliminate that problem. You are still stuck with a single row chain which will still stretch like the factory unit so you really want to replace it every 100K or so.

The key to keeping a 22R alive is to pay attention on start up and if you hear the chain flopping around until oil pressure gets up to replace the chain now before it wears a hole in the timing cover, and fills the oil with aluminum shavings and coolant which then kills the oil pump.

Yes, these Toyotas were everywhere purchased in part because of the reputation of the first Celicas imported to North America.

I believe that had Toyota not created Scion but instead carried on with the Celica and Supra models they would have retained loyal customers in addition no to attracting the younger generation. The Celica was created as Toyota’s answer to the Mustang. It was a big hit out of the gate and now those first early seventies models are now collectible.

Interesting that several people have made the comparison with the RWD 626 which did make quite a splash when released, but always struck me as even duller than the Celica. Anyway, in the late ’70’s I worked with two guys who drove Fiat 124’s – one a Spyder, one a Coupe. The Spyder owner traded his in for a Gen2 Celica which we all (a bunch of mechanical engineers) admired for its fit and finish, and design detailing. The Coupe owner soon traded his in for a 626 and I don’t recall that it drew much attention.

Don’t know if anyone will see this a year and a half down the road, but you can imagine my surprise when I googled 1979 Toyota Celica and my car popped up! This is indeed my Celica that Perry wrote about and photographed in Rockland.

When I bought the car in 1981, it had 24k on the clock it now has 255K, I was 21, and it was my first car that wasn’t a $100 beater. The original owner had installed the sunroof and the louvers, everything else is my doing.

30 years ago I was rear ended, and the car was totaled. I bought the salvage and did a rear clip, the back half is actually a 1981. The color is original but the paint is not as it was painted at that time. The drivers seat frame broke about 25 years ago, the front seats are from an ’85 Supra, the car is indeed a survivor!

I still drive the car daily from May through October, and have amassed a pile of new parts to do a complete restoration. The original wheels with center caps and trim rings in mint condition are in the basement. Maybe I’ll get to that someday!

It is a treat to see the car recognized. It really is a part of me after all these years!

MIke Barie……..Jeff Spiller here…..I’m the person that sold you that car back in 1981…I bought it new off the showroom floor at Toyota of Portland (ME)…I installed the sunroof and rear louvers…..If you ever decide to sell let me know…I’d also be very interested in doing a full restoration..

This is indeed the car I bought from you way back when! I’ve been the parts manager for the Toyota dealer in Rockland for the last 29 years and have been buying the parts to do a restoration along the way. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get to it or not. Planning on moving to Arizona in a couple years and haven’t made up my mind whether I’ll take the car along or not. After all these years though it would be very difficult to part with it, but how much stuff do I want to move across the country.

Finding the car on this site was quite a surprise and hearing from you is just as big a surprise!

Hey Everyone hows it going today?
I’m currently in the garage building the same (yr,color) Celica as shown above!
I bought my 79 two years ago this may with 91k original miles, and has gone through quite a bit of a transformation so far.
Full Black interior swap with all one off vinyl door panels with aluminum accents an oversized rivets. Custom suede wrapped dash pad. And 1998 Acura Integra GSR seating.
Fully custom dash and rear deck lid with in dash media center and tablet install where factory push button AM FM and heater controls originally sat.
Currently the car is up on stands with motor/subframe assembly out for rebuild/powdercoating.
While out the whole engine compartment is going through a rigorous teardown, tuck, and polish.
Only looking at another 6 weeks before (Planned) completion, cannot Wait to get my “Turtle” Back on the Road. Absolutely Love my Celica!!!